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MS PowerPoint Background Images

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MS PowerPoint Background Images

Subject: MS PowerPoint Background Images
From: Doug Zwick <email@hidden>
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:27:04 -0600

I am trying to create PNG image files from arbitrary PowerPoint presentations programmatically using AppleScript (under Office 2008), for importing into an on-line meeting system. Ideally, I want to end up with a small set of unique background images, and an image file containing the "foreground" objects of each slide. I can then composite these to reconstitute an image of each slide. If I can't do that, then a simple PNG image of each entire slide (background and all) would suffice.

The "Save as Picture..." menu item is not scriptable (the "save as picture" verb only applies to shapes, and cannot be applied to an entire slide or presentation). I have tried looping over every slide and using "copy object", which does place a PICT image of a single slide on the clipboard, but it is at substantially reduced resolution. I briefly looked at GUI scripting the "Save as Picture..." menu item, but trying to script the navigation of the file selector to the desired output file (in a completely unrelated directory) looks to be a deal breaker.

I can get the "foreground" objects rendered to image files by applying "save as picture" to each "shape i of slide xxx". Although they each render to a separate PNG file, I can composite them in my code (the AppleScript is driven by a Java app that post-processes the image files). I can get the background colour from the colour scheme of the slide or slide master, which will work well enough for presentations with plain backgrounds, but presentations that have graphic images in their background are giving me trouble. I can't seem to get the background image. The "background of slide xxx" is a missing value, the "background of slide master of slide xxx" is a missing value, and the "shapes of slide master of slide xxx" do not include the background. I know that the image is in there, and probably tied to the theme somehow (the "office theme" class has no property even remotely resembling a background image).

Can any PowerPoint scripting gurus out there shed any light on how to accomplish this? This could also be the result an incomplete understanding on my part of PowerPoint's AppleScript object model. Can anyone suggest a good reference on the PowerPoint object model? The PPT 2004 AppleScript Reference, and the Script Editor's "show dictionary" for PPT 2007 doesn't seem to give me what I need. _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. AppleScript-Users mailing list (email@hidden) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: Archives: http://lists.apple.com/archives/applescript-users

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